e preceding sentences no further
proof is thought necessary.

With the aid of a little repetition, we will now attempt to make a
step of progress. The tokens of energy, order, splendor,
beneficence, in the universe, are not, according to John, as we
have seen, the effects of angelic personages, emanating gods,
Gnostic aons, but are the workings of the self revealing power of
the one true and eternal God, this power being conceived by John,
according to the philosophy of his age, as a proper person, God's
instrument in creation. Reason, life, light, love, grace,
righteousness, kindred terms so thickly scattered over his pages,
are not to him, as they were to the Gnostics, separate beings, but
are the very working of the Logos, consubstantial manifestations
of God's nature and attributes. But mankind, fallen into folly and
vice, perversity and sin, lying in darkness, were ignorant that
these Divine qualities were in reality mediate exhibitions of God,
immediate exhibitions of the Logos. "The light was shining in
darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." Then, to reveal
to men the truth, to regenerate them and conjoin them through
himself with the Father in the experience of eternal life, the
hypostatized Logos left his transcendent glory in heaven and came
into the world in the person of Jesus. "No man hath seen God at
any time: the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father,
he hath revealed him." "I came down from heaven to do the will of
Him that sent me." This will is that all who see and believe on
the Son shall have everlasting life. "God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life." "The bread of God
is He who cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world."
The doctrine of the pre existence of souls, and of their being
born into the world in the flesh, was rife in Judea when this
Gospel was written, and is repeatedly alluded to in it.31 That
John applies this doctrine to Christ in the following and in other
instances is obvious. "Before Abraham was, I am." "I came forth
from the Father and am come into the world." "Father, glorify thou
me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."
"What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was
before?" As for ourselves, we do not see how it is possible for
any unprejudiced person, after studying the fourth Gospel
faithfully with the req